Reading Everyday Life

This course will examine how texts encountered in daily life shape consciousness and direct people to accept social arrangements involving work routines, gender roles, relationships with technology and interactions with other people and other cultures. It is based on the premise that cultural life involves constantly “reading” and interpreting the world around us—a world of advertising, literature, visual art, music, media messages, body language and dress codes. Students will learn to critically analyze this rich world of meaning by reading both primary source material and relevant works of cultural theory, rhetoric, literary studies and media studies.